The Abrego family, Head Professional at Casa Del Rey Golf Links, 1926, Courtesy of moving image research collections at University of South Carolina.
“Many of the people closely associated with history Pogonip also played major roles in the evolution and development of the city of Santa Cruz” (Mornstein)
“Tom Bendelow felt that municipal or public golf courses should be like public ball fields, open to all players at little or no cost.”
Dorothy Deming Wheeler, an avid golfer, won the Casa Del Rey Links Junior Club Championship in 1913. She was also a great polo player and brought Polo to Pogonip after the closure of the golf course with a ton of the credit going to fellow pioneer and Pasatiempo Golf Course founder, Marion Hollins. Marion won a lucky bet on a horserace after an accidental bet paid off- she ended up with $400 after accidentally betting on a underdog. She used the $400 to create a Polo field at Pasatiempo and Dorothy and Marion had two strong Polo Teams that would take on other clubs across California. Deming Wheeler eventually founded the U.S. National Polo Association, one of the first recreational organizations in the country to allow women to play alongside the men- big things were happening here in Santa Cruz and especially at Pogonip! Not only did Dorothy play Polo at an extremely high level, better then most of the men, she arranged high profile international matches with teams travelling from as far as Argentina to come play Polo at Pogonip.
U.S. Women's Polo Association Mounted Corps
In the early days of World War Two Dorothy Imagined stranded pilots shot down in the backcountry and so she trained her horsewomen to rescue these pilots. Dorothy described her team of Mounted Corps as “trained to deliver messages, to transport the injured, destroy incendiary bombs, and signal for aid in all emergencies.” These women trained at Pogonip on horseback and were invited to the Washington in 1942 and was recognized by the Red Cross as the Women’s Mounted Unit of the Red Cross Motor Corps (Meager and McInerney).
In 1911 construction began on a new golf club in Santa Cruz. Local businessman, Fred Swanton negotiated a lease for recreational land from the Cowell Family to build Casa Del Rey Country Club and a Golf Links. A man named John Martin from the Southern Pacific Railroad helped finance the project to bring golf to Santa Cruz. The golf course stop was a flagstop along the San Lorenzo River heading towards Santa Cruz. There were a couple hundred stairs climbing the steep terrain from the railroad up towards the clubhouse. They contracted a golf course architect by the name of Tom Bendelow, from Aberdeen Scotland. Tom later became known as the “Johnny Appleseed” of American Golf Course design as he was responsible for designing over 600 course in North America. Having grown up in Scotland, the birthplace of golf, Tom has been exposed to some of the best golf courses in the world and also befriended the most famous architect, greenkeeper and golf club maker in golf, Old Tom Morris.
This new club in Santa Cruz was promoted as a ‘working man’s golf course with reasonable rates. (Meager and McInerney). Bendelow felt that all golf courses should be easily accessible, family and kid friendly as he wanted to see the enjoyment associated with the game of golf grow.
The course had been designed as a mid-income experience, but middle class people were not especially interested in golfing at the time, and with the opening of the more upscale Pasatiempo in 1929 and Rio del Mar (now Seascape Golf Club) in 1930, and the advent of the Great Depression the golf course on Pogonip Hill simply could not compete and was forced to shut down in 1934 (Santa Cruz Trains).
